


Like For Like

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Possessed Dean Winchester, Protective Castiel, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, encasement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 21:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16437137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A hunt gone wrong sees Dean possessed by a vengeful ghost that forces him back to the bunker where it knows Castiel is hurt, vulnerable and alone.





	Like For Like

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Kink meme prompt.

Dean trudged back to the car, bruised and aching. He slumped behind the wheel, and felt an unpleasant _click_ in his knee. 

Great. 

When the ghost had whacked him across the room, Dean had been left scrabbling back to the dusty old bones he’d uncovered in the basement. He’d managed to light them up before the pissed off spirit of Emmet Burns had got ahold of him again, and then the old house had been mostly silent, other than the crackling flames. 

Silent, and sad. 

Emmet hadn’t deserved what happened to him. Murdered because he’d fallen in love with a woman society felt was his better. Body buried in the foundations of the woman’s family’s house, where he’d been at peace, it seemed (since Dean had no found no historical mention of disturbances), until a descendant of his killers had moved in. 

Well, he was at peace now. 

And all Dean wanted was to get home to the person _he_ loved. 

He started the car, letting the engine warm up while he dialled his phone. 

Cas answered on the second ring, like he’d been waiting for the call. Dean grinned. He knew Cas had probably been doing just that. 

“Dean.”

God, even tired as he was, that voice did things to him. He wished he was closer. He wished he’d been able to pass on this hunt. 

“Hey, angel. You good?”

He grinned at Cas’s frustrated sigh. “I’m recovering. I was well enough to come with you. Are _you_ alright?”

“Just a salt and burn, Cas,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.” 

_Especially not when you’re meant to be recuperating_. If two hunts hadn’t come up together, if hunters weren’t so thin on the ground, Dean would have stayed with Cas while Sam went to work, or vice versa. 

But at least Sam’s case had also been one that an experienced hunter could handle alone, and he’d insisted Dean take the job closer to home. 

“I’m heading back now,” Dean said. “You don’t have to wait up.” His jaw hurt but he grinned anyway. 

“I don’t sleep,” Cas said, and Dean could tell he was smiling too. 

They both knew Cas would be waiting for him to get back, waiting to make sure he was okay, ushering him into a shower, trying to heal his scrapes and bruises (which Dean would veto because Cas needed his Grace to himself right now, and he didn’t have anything some alcohol and painkillers couldn’t fix) and getting him to eat something. 

And then Dean was going to spend the night with Cas in his arms. 

“Couple of hours,” he told Cas. “See you soon, angel.”

“Drive safe.”

Dean hung up, then sent Sam a quick text to see he was okay and let his brother know that he was heading home. Sam replied almost immediately. 

_I’ll be done in a couple of hours. I checked in with Cas. He’s okay._

Sam was a good kid. Dean sent a text in reply to say he’d see him back home, and then put his phone away. 

Maybe he could knock thirty minutes off the drive. An hour and a half sounded way better than two hours any day, especially when it meant less time until he got back to his family again. 

But just as Dean was reaching for the parking brake, he noticed something odd. 

His breath. It was misting in the air. 

++

The bunker was very quiet when he was the only person there. 

Cas used the crutches the brothers had obtained for him to get from the library to the kitchen; he knew he’d likely get a lecture when his humans came home, but he felt more like walking wounded than bedridden (though he was sure they felt the opposite). 

The point was that he, boredom aside, wasn’t going to lie in his bed while his bones knit and muscles healed, and his strength returned, when Dean and Sam were out hunting. 

There were things to be done. Besides, maybe this would go some way to reassuring them that he was recovering. 

So he’d finished cataloguing the texts he and Sam had, uh, _obtained_ from an auctioning off of an old man’s estate, and was glad those books would be safe here in the bunker. 

And now he was going to cook for them. He had some recipes from YouTube that would be ready for when Dean got home, and he could set a portion aside, kept warm, for Sam. 

They’d looked after him. He was going to look after them. 

But getting the ingredients together and prepared was difficult. The crutches got in the way, but Cas couldn’t keep to his feet or get around without them. 

He managed to ignore the pain in his hips and legs for the most part (keeping busy helped) but now and again there would be a sudden sharp reminder that only days before he’d been hurt very badly and that an angel relying on the waning power of Heaven was not as robust as before. 

He would recover, though, minor setbacks notwithstanding. All the same, he was glad he’d mostly hidden the more painful moments from the brothers. 

They had enough to deal with, now and as always. 

But Dean would be home anytime, and there would be a hopefully decent meal ready and then apple and almond pie. 

Cas eased himself into a seat at the table and settled down to wait. 

++

Maybe twenty minutes later, Cas heard the bunker door open and close. He turned down the oven and hobbled back down the hall and to the war room. 

Dean was standing half way down the stairs, looking slowly around him. 

Cas paused, concerned. Perhaps something had happened on the hunt. But Dean looked alright, physically, or certainly Cas had seen him worse. 

He ventured forward, silently cursing his crutches when one caught the table leg and overbalanced him. He caught himself on the tabletop, dropping the crutches instead of tumbling to the floor, but the movement was awkward and painful. 

“Dean,” Cas panted. His body wouldn’t seem to co-operate with him, and his arms were shaking with the effort of keeping himself from falling. 

Dean stared at him for a moment, then slowly came down the stairs. Cas felt fear grip him; for Dean to be walking, not rushing, to him, meant he had to be hurt and Cas wouldn’t be able to heal him or support him if required and Sam was still some distance away. 

But then Dean took his arms and put him back on his feet in one swift motion and that _hurt_. The pain stole his stability but Dean held on to him, a sure and tight grip around his upper arms. 

Too tight. 

“Dean?”

Dean smiled, but it was cold. “You must be Castiel. His lover.”

Cas tried to pull free but without success. Only _Dean’s_ strength was keeping him upright, but it was an unnatural strength. Cas tried to see within him, but his Grace was tied up in healing him and doing that with difficulty. He couldn’t see anything of Dean's spirit, his soul. 

But he was still sure that Dean was not alone in there, even if he didn't know how. 

He gasped in pain as Dean pulled him in close, and watched his breath form and dissipate as if the air had suddenly chilled. 

++

Sam only slowed down as he started up the hill leading to the bunker. His gun was on the seat beside him, but as he reached the doors he didn't see any unknown vehicles or strangers hanging around. 

The bunker looked as it had when he'd left the day before; nothing seemed wrong. 

And yet.

Sam hadn't been able to get Dean or Cas on the phone since he'd packed up and started for home. 

One of them, he could maybe understand. Phones ran out of power, cell service went down, people could be distracted or in the shower or just not hear the ringing…

But not Cas because he was in the bunker where he could charge his phone, and Sam knew he would have kept his close especially since he was alone and hurt. 

And not Dean because he always carried a back up phone. 

The only explanation Sam had was that something was wrong. 

He pulled his car into the garage and parked up next to the Impala. The car’s hood was cold. Dean had been back for a while, but the bunker felt empty. 

Cold, unwelcoming. 

Wrong. 

Sam kept his gun raised as he went downstairs and then through the door that led to the bunker proper. 

That was when he heard the voice. 

He recognised it instantly as Dean's: his brother was speaking, quietly, though he couldn't make out the words. 

Sam forced himself to hold back, and took the last few steps more calmly than he felt. The lights were turned down and his foot brushed something in the near darkness. 

One of Cas's crutches. 

“Sam,” Dean said suddenly. 

Sam looked up to where Dean was sitting by the war room table, face hidden in shadow. 

But it was him. Sam knew his brother. 

And then he saw the shape on the table and his heart seemed to stop. 

There was a body there. 

It was shrouded, swaddled tight. Memories of the last person they'd done that to rose up like a crushing wave and Sam looked back at the crutches and no. He couldn't say goodbye to their angel again. 

Cas...Cas was okay. Not okay, but _okay_. He...he hadn't died here, alone and afraid and in pain. 

_No_. 

“Dean.” It took him a few moments to get his voice to work. “Dean, what happened? Dean, _what happened to Cas_?”

That was when he heard a muffled cry and the body on the table moved. Sam started; he could have sworn…

...he just heard his name. 

“Cas? Cas!” He moved toward the table but Dean was on his feet, blocking him, and what little light there was fell on his brother's face. 

That wasn't Dean. At least not only Dean. 

It looked like another set of features briefly overlaid Dean's. Sam caught a hint of narrow cheekbones, thin lips and a hateful expression, and then it was gone. 

But he knew whoever it was hadn't. 

Sam raised his gun, even though he couldn't shoot his brother. There was also no point. 

Normal bullets didn't work on ghosts and Sam was pretty sure that one was in control of Dean. 

++

_Dean fought. He fought her when she slipped inside him. He fought her as she learned him, and all the things he knew._

_She stripped him bare, but he learned her too and her pain felt like it was flaying him alive._

_He screamed apologies but it was all too little, too late, and she was going to drive them both off the bridge just a mile away._

_Until she learned of Cas._

_She took some time there, prying with a bitter interest._

_When she found Dean's memories of that night, those hours spent preparing Cas for the pyre, he felt her confusion. But she dug further, and Dean was not ashamed to beg her for mercy._

_To let him go home to his angel._

_He knew his mistake when he felt a hateful eagerness and she told him they would go home._

_And then she’d take from him as he had taken from her. Just a lot more slowly._

++

They didn’t see a lot of ghost possessions in the bunker. But they’d learned some hard lessons over the years and one was that literally _anything_ could happen. 

Which was why there was more than one gun strapped to the underside of the table. Third one along from the stairs held the rock salt. But Sam wasn’t ready to shoot Dean, not if he had another option. 

He did. 

Cas was still struggling. Sam couldn’t think how horrific this was for him, but then Dean (or the spirit riding him) lost patience and shot him a hateful glare. 

Cas gave a broken whimper and went still, and that was it. 

The iron bar was nothing fancy (Sam had stolen it from the waste heap at a construction site years ago) but it had done the job for them many a time and it would again now. 

Sam snatched it from the stand that also held the katana and swung it hard at his brother, catching him on the shoulder. 

He got two cries of pain in return, one male, one female, and then Dean was groaning on the floor and a transparent figure retreated from him, screaming. 

Sam lunged at her again, but now she was out of Dean, the bunker’s defences took over. The lights came on, a painful red, and fiery sparks shot through her. 

She screamed again, and then she was gone. 

Sam dropped the bar even as Dean clambered to his feet. 

“You okay?”

Dean didn’t answer him. He threw himself at the table, tugging Cas’s bound form to him. Sam helped, and tried to tear loose the material covering the angel. He yelled in frustration when it wouldn’t give, pulled too tight to get a good grip on. 

“Just hold him in case he tries to move!”

Dean pulled out his knife and dug the tip into the thick folds of fabric, deeper than Sam would have dared, and tore a jagged gap big enough for him to get a hand through. 

He tossed the knife aside and then both of them wrenched and ripped and finally felt the softer cloth of Sam’s hoodie, the one he’d given Cas to wear for comfort as he recovered. 

When they finally had him free, Dean pulled Cas against him, shrugging off Sam’s hand when he pleaded caution. 

Cas had been already hurt. Who knew what new or worsened injuries he had now?

But he wasn’t moving. He didn’t cry out as Dean held him. He still lay there, still, in his arms. 

“Cas,” Dean begged. “Cas, _please_!”

++

_Cas fought. Not physically. He couldn’t resist Dean like that without hurting him, and with his injuries as they were it was more likely he couldn’t resist Dean at all._

_He fought in the only other way left to him, by pleading with Dean to fight, by trying to drive out the spirit who had taken his hunter over._

_But his efforts were for nothing._

_Just like his panic when Dean’s skilled hands wrapped the first layer around him, tight and suffocating._

_Dean had done this before, and the ghost made him take his time with it._

_And then, before the last of the light and air was shut out, there was just time to tell Dean he loved him and that this wasn’t his fault._

++

Cas awoke with a start, and shot upright before the flaring pain reminded him he was still injured. 

Two sets of hands took hold of him, and eased him back; two voices urged him to take it easy, telling him he was safe, that everything was okay. 

When everything didn’t seem swallowed up by pain, he became more aware and opened his eyes to see the brothers looking down at him. 

He could tell from their faces that it was over. 

“Dean. Sam.”

Sam’s hand was resting on the side of his neck, secure and comforting, as if he feared Cas might try to move again. 

But Dean was no longer touching him and Cas felt that absence more than everything else combined. 

“You scared us,” Sam said. “Just take it easy, okay?”

Cas nodded and then Sam stepped away, glancing between him and Dean. 

“I’ll get you some tea, Cas, okay?”

Then he was gone, and Cas saw Dean was no longer looking at him. 

He held out his hand. “Dean.”

It took a moment. But then Dean’s fingers were wrapped around his, and Cas gave them a tug, using as much strength as he had to encourage Dean to come closer. 

“I’m alright,” he said. 

Dean huffed at him. “Yeah. I put you in a shroud, Cas. _While you were still alive._ ”

“No. _You_ didn’t.”

Dean looked away, and Cas very much wanted to have that ghost present when his injuries were healed. 

“I tried to stop her, Cas, I swear it. But she...that guy whose bones I burned? He was _hers_ and they’d stayed on there together and I’d done that to him so she...she saw when I had to...before and so she… _Cas_.

Cas managed to pull Dean down and cradled the hunter against his side. It hurt, Dean’s body a weight on still healing breaks and tears, but it was nothing compared to the pain Dean was in. 

Cas whispered to him, in his own tongue, bestowing what comfort he could with his words, his presence, his touch. 

“We’re alright,” he said, finally, in English. “She didn’t separate us. We’re together, Sam’s here, and _we’re alright_.”

Dean propped himself up and looked at Cas’s lower half. “If we’d been here for _that_ , none of this would have happened.”

Cas pulled Dean back down. Dean had enough to blame himself for and none of them had foreseen the refugees turning on the only angel in their midst with such brutality in mind, using the skills they’d learned from their own world and the resources their hosts had so innocently provided them with. 

At least the brothers had returned before they’d carried out their plan to its conclusion.

“You saved me,” Cas reminded him. “You and Sam. Then, and tonight.” 

But he could tell, as always, that convincing Dean he was not to blame for every single thing that went wrong in their lives would take time. 

This, though, holding him… Being there, a safe place for him to rest and reassure himself his family were still with him...

It was a good place to start.


End file.
